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Maybe the hands are loosen?
I recently found an old quartz watch at the bottom of a drawer. I popped in a new battery (SR920 / 371) and it started ticking away. Brucy bonus - I've now got a beater for free, or so I thought.
I popped it on to wear to work and found it was losing considerable time (approx 4 minutes per hour). Oh well, I thought and placed it back in the watch drawer. I've watched it for 3 days and it appeared to lose no time at all, so I wore it again around the house and found it losing about 1-2 minutes per hour. It has again sat in the drawer for a few days and again show no discernable loss of time.
What's going on? It's about 20 years old, so no concern, but just confusing. It's running some kind of 1-jewel Ronda movement (can't make out any movement number).
Maybe the hands are loosen?
That's possible, or maybe it keeps stopping when it's worn. Usually they work or they don`t, not aware of any 'in between' situation.Originally Posted by igorRIJEKA
Try putting it in a vertical position; if the hands are loose that should show up the problem. My guess is that it's stopping intermittently, but I`d expect it to also do this when left in the drawer.
Paul
Edit: Here's another suggestion: It may be stopping when the crown's disturbed, then starting again. I had this happen recently on a relative's watch, which stopped if the crown was touched. Only answer was a new movement.
My mondaine was doing this, and showing the low power indicator, I've just been to get the battery changed and the battery had almost full power, but it was the wrong battery, so it was losing contact intermittently. This obviously happened more on the wrist.
ktmog6uk
marchingontogether!
Could also be a dirty gear train or fluff in the gear train, had similar with Heuer quartzs in the past.
Agreed, eventually all quartz watches need cleaning, but why would it behave OK in a drawer but have problems when worn? That's what I can`t work out.
I`m thinking the wrong size battery theory may be correct because the contact will make and break when the watch is moving. Possibly the battery's jumped out of it's clamp and it's intermittently losing contact? This can happen on some watches.
Got to be a simple answer to this one, but getting a 20yr old watch cleaned/serviced may be wise.
Paul
I have had this with autos in the past - they warm up and run differently than a cold watch in a drawer - but never a quartz.
I was off-line last night, so didn't have a chance to check in on the thread. Many thanks for all of the suggestions. I'll double check the battery (size and installation) and look at either cleaning, or getting a new movement.
Thanks all.
I had a very similar problem with a new watch not so long ago, but sadly I never found a definitive cause. My watch would generally be fine in the watch case, but when worn it would randomly lose minutes at a time. It was sent back and the movement replaced but after three or four weeks started to do the same thing again. I suspected the battery connection was the culprit so made sure there was a good strong connection and that seemed to help for a while, then it started doing it again. I wondered if the real culprit was maybe the crown in some way where it stops the movement when pulled out. In the end I couldn't risk wearing it any longer as it was making me late for meetings and it was replaced. The replacement has been perfect.
I know this doesn't really help at all, sorry, but I thought I'd share the fact that it can even happen to a new watch, not just twenty year-old ones.
Ian
Well, thanks to all of the replies, I took another look at this watch over the weekend. First removed the back and on turning the watch over to drop the screw-back off, I heard a faint metallic sound. Looking more closely, I could see that the battery was moving very slightly when the watch was moved. This was confirmed when I noticed the second hand stopping briefly when the watch was moved.
Looking more closely, I spotted that the retaining arm that sits over the battery was not applying any load to the cell. A quick play revealed that the spring arm has a retaining loop., which locks the battery down and applies an axial load. Re-inserted the battery with the retaining arm seated correctly and....24 hours on, we have lost no time at all.
Thanks for all of the replies which made me take a second look and finally do the job properly!
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